Hawaii Day Eight

For those of you sick of my vacation posts, this is the last one.  Day eight was our last full day in Hawaii. 

We started it off by taking a helicopter ride.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from the ride.  I’m not a big fan of flying, but surprisingly it wasn’t really scary at all.  The take off and landings in planes is what I really hate.  In a helicopter, take offs and landings are nice and smooth.  It was only a 50 minute ride, but we got some nice views of a couple waterfalls, and got an even closer look Mount Kilauea.  We flew right around the active volcano.  We then went on a search for some open lava.  The flows are always changing, and mostly underground when we were there.  We did see a couple open windows where you could see the lava flowing.  It was pretty damn cool to see.

That afternoon we went to Mauna Kea.  Mauna Kea is the highest point in Hawaii, and one of the best spots in the word to observe space, because it’s above 40% of Earth’s atmosphere, and 90% of the water vapor.  We met our tour at the base.  It was nice to take the tour up because the ride was a little hairy.  About half way up we passed through the clouds.  We saw the only snow removal equipment in Hawaii up there, but sadly there was no snow this time if year.  The summit was amazing.  It was so cool to see all the observatories, even though we couldn’t see inside them.  It was pretty cold and windy up there, so we just stayed at the summit long enough to watch the Sun set.  It was pretty amazing watching the Sun set above the clouds.

After watching the Sun set, we headed back partway down the mountain, where it’s warmer, and a little less windy.  Our tour guide set up a telescope and started pointing out different constellations, and planets, and showing us a few things in the telescope.  I could have stayed there all night looking at the stars.  The view was pretty spectacular.  We saw 8 to 10 meteors, and many satellites.  I don’t think I have ever seen a satellite before.

When we were in Hawaii time didn’t seem to go fast at all, but now that we have been back a month, it really did go fast.  I really enjoyed it, and hope to get back there sometime again in my lifetime.  I just wish it wasn’t so far away, and so expensive.